Principal Software Engineer

Health & wellbeing resources and programs

Paid vacation, personal, and sick days for work-life balance

Competitive compensation and benefits packages

Work-life balance in a hybrid environment with at least 3 days in office

Career growth and development opportunities

Opportunities to contribute to community causes

Work with diverse team members in an inclusive and collaborative environment

This job posting is for an existing vacancy and the location can be Toronto, ON (5700 Yonge St) OR Calgary, AB (Our Brand-New Office)

The Principal Software Engineer defines and evolves the target architecture for their domain. This high-impact role leads the design of complex, high-risk systems, identifies systemic technical risks, and establishes engineering standards that scale organizationally. The Principal Engineer acts as an escalation authority for major incidents, provides strategic technical leadership on modernization efforts, and coaches senior technical staff without formal authority.

Define and evolve target architecture for your domain in alignment with Enterprise Architecture and executive leadership.

Lead the design of high-risk, complex systems with strict requirements for availability, low latency, security, and regulatory compliance.

Identify systemic technical risks across Pods, building business cases and technical roadmaps to address them.

Translate business objectives into technical roadmaps and communicate architectural trade-offs to senior leadership.

Establish engineering standards, patterns, and reference implementations that scale beyond a single Pod.

Provide technical leadership on platform migrations monolith-to-microservices modernization, and build-versus-buy decisions.

Coach and grow senior developers and technical leads, driving architectural alignment without formal authority.

Serve as an escalation authority for severe production incidents, leading systemic remediation efforts across platforms.

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

9+ years of professional software development experience with a sustained track record of technical leadership.

Expert-level command of distributed systems design (consistency, resilience, scaling, failure modes).

Demonstrated architectural ownership for large, business-critical production platforms.

Extensive cloud-native architecture experience (GCP preferred), including multi-region, high-availability, and cost-aware design.

Proven ability to influence and align engineers, architects, and product leaders without relying on formal authority. and CI/CD at scale.

Preferred Qualifications:

Background in brokerage, capital markets, trading systems, payments, or highly regulated financial environments.

Hands-on experience with high-frequency data streaming, real-time market data, or low-latency execution systems.

Track record leading large-scale cloud migrations or monolith-to-microservices modernization.

Application security, threat modeling, or DevSecOps at an organizational level.

Recognized technical presence through open-source contributions, patents, or industry speaking

At Questrade Financial Group of Companies, with multiple office locations around the world, we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible work environment. This is an environment where individuals are treated with dignity and respect. Here, the unique skills and experience you bring will be valued. You will be supported and motivated, so that you can harness your unlimited potential. Our team reflects the diversity of the communities we serve and operate in. Having a collaborative and diverse team helps us push boundaries to bring the future of fintech into existence—not only for the benefit of our customers, but for those who build their career with us.

Questrade Financial Group of companies Applicant Tracking System utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) for application screening. The AI system operates on predetermined criteria, with final decisions subject to human review.

Candidates selected for an interview will be contacted directly. If you require accommodation during the recruitment/selection process, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.